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A FRAGMENT 



ON THE 



IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC 
CHURCH. 



BY THE LATE 



REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



BOSTON : 

REDDING AND COMPANY. 

1845. 



DICKINSON AND CO., PRINTERS. 



A FRAGMENT 



IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC 
CHURCH. 



ET THE LATE 



f 



REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 
J 



BOSTON: 

REDDING & CO., S STATE STREET. 

18 4 5. 






I 



PREFACE. 



The following imrevised fragment, found among 
the papers of the late Kev. Sydney Smith, if it 
serve no other purpose, will at least prove that 
his last, as well as his earliest efforts, were exerted 
for the promotion of religious freedom, and may 
satisfy those who have objected to his later 
writings, because his own interest appeared to 
be bound up with his opinions, that he did not 
hesitate to the last moment of his life, boldly to 
advocate what he considered to be justice to 
others. 

April, 1845. 



Private Memoranda of Subjects intended to have been 
introduced in the Pamphlet, Sfc. 

Debates in the House of Commons in 1825, on the motion of 
Lord F. Egerton, for the support of the Roman Catholic 
clergy. Printed separately, I believe, in Ireland. 

Evidence before the House of Commons in 1824 and 1825, 
including Doyle's. 

A Speech of Charles Grant's in 1819, on a motion of James 
Daly to enforce the Insurrection Act. 

Debates on Maynooth, in February last, (1844.) 

Hard case of the priest's first year. 

Provision offered by Pitt and Castlereagh, and accepted by the 
hierarchy. 

* Send ambassadors to Constantinople, and refuse to send them 

to Rome. 
England should cast off its connection with the Irish Church. 
Lord F. Egerton's plan for paying the Roman Catholic clergy in 

1825. The prelates agreed to take the money. 

* Old mode of governing by Protestants at an end. 

* Vast improvements since the Union, and fully specified in 

Martin, page 35. 

* Priests dare not thwart the people, for fear of losing money. 

* Dreadful oppression of the people. 

* Bishops dare not enforce their rules. They must have money. 

* These subjects arc treated of in the Fragment. 



A FRAGMENT 

ON 

THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC 
CHURCH. 



The revenue of the Irish Roman Catholic 
Church is made up of half-pence, potatoes, rags, 
bones, and fragments of old clothes, and those 
Irish old clothes. They worship often in hovels, 
or in the open air, from the want of any place of 
worship. Their religion is the religion of three- 
fourths of the population ! Not far off, in a well- 
windowed and well-roofed house, is a well-paid 
Protestant clergyman, preaching to stools and 
hassocks, and crying in the wilderness ; near 
him the clerk, near him the sexton, near him the 
sexton's wife — furious against the errors of 
Popery, and willing to lay down their lives for 
the great truths established at the Diet of Augs- 
burg. 

There is a story in the Leinster family which 
passes under the name of 

" She is not ivell." 
A Protestant clergyman, whose church was in 
the neighborhood, was a guest at the house of 



that upright and excellent man, the Duke of 
Leinster. He had been staying there three or 
four days ; and on Saturday night, as they were 
all retiring to their rooms, the Duke said, "We 
shall meet to-morrow at breakfast." — "Not so 
(said our Milesian Protestant); your hour, my 
lord, is a little too late for me; I am very par- 
ticular in the discharge of my duty, and your 
breakfast will interfere with my church." The 
Duke was pleased with the veiy proper excuses 
of his guest, and they separated for the night ; — 
his Grace perhaps deeming his palace more safe 
from all the evils of life for containing in its 
bosom such an exemplary son of the Church. 
The first person, however, whom the Duke saw 
in the morning upon entering the breakfast-room 
was our punctual Protestant, deep in rolls and 
butter, his finger in an egg, and a large slice of 
the best Tipperary ham secured on his plate. 
" Delighted to see you, my dear vicar," said the 
Duke; "but I must say as much surprised as 
delighted." — " Oh, don't you know what has 
happened ? " said the sacred breakfaster, — " she is 
not %velV — " Who is not well ? " said the Duke : 
" you are not married — you have no sister living 
— I'm quite uneasy; tell me who is not well." 
" Why the fact is, my lord Duke, that my con- 
gregation consists of the clerk, the sexton, and 
the sexton's wife. Now the sexton's wife is in 
very delicate health: when she cannot attend. 



we cannot muster the number mentioned in the 
rubric; and we have, therefore, no service on 
that day. The good woman had a cold and sore 
throat this morning, and, as I had breakfasted 
but slightly, I thought I might as well hurry 
back to the regular family dejeuner." I don't 
know that the clergyman behaved improperly; 
but such a church is hardly worth an insurrec- 
tion and civil war every ten years. 

Sir Robert did well in fighting it out with 
O'Connell. He was too late ; but when he began 
he did it boldly and sensibly, and I, for one, am 
heartily glad O'Connell has been found guilty 
and imprisoned. He was either in earnest about 
Repeal or he was not. If he was in earnest, I 
entirely agree with Lord Grey and Lord Spencer, 
that civil war is preferable to Repeal. Much as 
I hate wounds, dangers, privations, and explosions 
— much as I love regular hours of dinner — 
foolish as I think men covered with the feathers 
of the male Pullus doinesticus, and covered with 
lace in the course of the ischiatic nerve — much 
as I detest all these follies and ferocities, I would 
rather turn soldier myself than acquiesce quietly 
in such a separation of the Empire. 

It is such a piece of nonsense, that no man can 
have any reverence for himself who would stop 
to discuss such a question. It is such a piece of 
anti-British villany, that none but the bitterest 
enemy of our blood and people could entertain 

2 



10 



such a project ! It is to be met only with round 
and grape — to be answered by Shrapnel and 
Congreve ; to be discussed in hollow squares, 
and refuted by battallions four deep ; to be put 
down by the ultima ratio of that armed Aristotle 
the Duke of Wellington. 

O'Connell is released; and released I have no 
doubt by the conscientious decision of the Law 
Lords. If he was unjustly (even from some tech- 
nical defect) imprisoned, I rejoice in his liber- 
ation. England is, I believe, the only country 
in the world, where such an event could have 
happened, and a wise Irishman (if there be a 
wise Irishman) should be slow in separating 
from a country whose spirit can produce, and 
whose institutions can admit, of such a result. 
Of his guilt no one doubts, but guilty men must 
be hung technically and according to established 
rules ; upon a statutable gibbet, with parliament 
rope, and a legal hangman, sheriff, and chaplain 
on the scaffold, and the mob ill the foreground. 

But, after all, I have no desire my dear Daniel 
should come to any harm, for I believe there is 
a great deal of virtue and excellent meaning in 
him, and I must now beg a few minutes con- 
versation with him. " After all, my dear Daniel, 
what is it you want? — a separation of the two 
countries? — for what purpose? — for your own 
aggrandisement ? — for the gratification of your 



11 

1 
personal vanity? You don't know yourself; 
you are much too honorable and moral a man, 
and too clear-sighted a person for such a busi- 
ness as this: the empire will be twisted out of 
your hands by a set of cut-throat villains, and 
you will die secretly by a poisoned potato, or 
be pistoled in the streets. You have too much 
sense, and taste, and openness, to endure for a 
session, the stupid and audacious wickedness and 
nonsense of your associates. If you want fame, 
you must be insatiable ! Who is so much known 
in all Europe, or so much admired by honest 
men for the real good you had done to your 
country, before this insane cry of Repeal? And 
don't imagine you can intimidate this Govern- 
ment; whatever be their faults or merits, you 
may take my word for it, you will not intimidate 
them. They will prosecute you again, and put 
down your Clontarf meetings, and they will be 
quite right in doing so. They may make conces- 
sions, and I think they will ; but they would fall 
into utter contempt, if they allowed themselves 
to be terrified into a dissolution of the Union. 
They know full well that the English nation are 
unanimous and resolute upon this point, and that 
they would prefer war to a Repeal. And now, 
dear Daniel, sit down quietly at Derrynane, and 
tell me, when the bodily frame is refreshed with 
the wine of Bordeaux, whether all this is worth 
while. What is the object of all government? 



12 



The object of all government is roast mutton, 
potatoes, claret, a stout constable, an honest 
justice, a clear highway, a free chapel. What 
trash to be bawlinsr in the streets about the 
Green Isle, the Isle of the Ocean! the bold 
anthem of Erin go brash ! A far better anthem 
would be Erin go bread and cheese, Erin go 
cabins that will keep out the rain, Erin go panta- 
loons without holes in them ! What folly to be 
making eternal declamations about governing 
yourselves ! If laws are good and well admin- 
istered, is it worth while to rush into war and 
rebellion, in order that no better laws may be 
made in another place ? Are you an Eton boy, 
who has just come out, full of Plutarch's Lives, 
and considering in every case how Epaminondas 
or PhilopcBmen would have acted, or are you 
our own dear Daniel, drilled in all the business 
and bustle of life? I am with you heart and 
soul in my detestation of all injustice done to 
Ireland. Your priests shall be fed and paid, 
the liberties of your Church be scrupulously 
guarded, and in civil affairs the most even justice 
be preserved between Catholic and Protestant. 
Thus far I am a thorough rebel as well as your- 
self; but when you come to the perilous nonsense 
of Repeal, in common with every honest man 
who has five grains of common sense, I take my 
leave." 

It is entertaining enough, that although the 



13 



Irish are beginning to be so clamorous about 
making their own laws, that the wisest and the 
best statutes in the books have been made since 
their union with England. All Catholic dis- 
abilities have been abolished ; a good police 
has been established all over the kingdom ; pub- 
lic courts of petty sessions have been instituted ; 
free trade between Great Britain and Ireland has 
been completely carried into effect; lord lieu- 
tenants are placed in every county ; church rates 
are taken off Catholic shoulders; the County 
Grand Jury Rooms are flung open to the public ; 
county surveyors are of great service ; a noble 
provision is made for educating the people. 
I never saw a man who had returned to Ire- 
land after four or five years' absence, who did 
not say how much it had improved, and how 
fast it was improving; and this is the country 
which is to be Erin-go-bragh'd by this shallow, 
vain, and irritable people into bloodshed and 
rebellion ! 

The first thing to be done is to pay the priests, 
and after a little time they will take the money. 
One man wants to repair his cottage ; another 
wants a buggy ; a third cannot shut his eyes to 
the dilapidations of a cassock. The draft is pay- 
able at sight in Dublin, or by agents in the next 
market town dependent upon the Commission in 
Dublin. The housekeeper of the holy man is 
importunate for money, and if it is not procured 



14 



by drawing for the salary, it must be extorted 
by curses and comminations from the ragged 
"worshippers, slowly, sorrowfully, and sadly. 
There will be some opposition at first, but the 
facility of getting the salary without the violence 
they are now forced to use, and the difficulties 
to which they are exposed in procuring the pay- 
ment of those emoluments to which they are 
fairly entitled, will, in the end, overcome all ob- 
stacles. And if it does not succeed, what harm 
is done by the attempt ? It evinces on the part 
of this country the strongest disposition to do 
what is just, and to apply the best remedy to 
the greatest evil ; but the very attempt would do 
good, and would be felt in the great Catholic 
insurrection, come when it will. All rebellions 
and disaffections are general and terrible in pro- 
portion as one party has suffered, and the other 
inflicted ; — any great measure of conciliation, pro- 
posed in the spirit of kindness, is remembered, 
and renders war less terrible, and opens avenues 
to peace. 

The Roman Catholic priest could not refuse to 
draw his salary from the State without incurring 
the indignation of his flock. " Why are you to 
come upon us for all this money, when you can 
ride over to Sligo or Belfast, and draw a draft 
upon Government for the amount ? " It is not 
easy to give a satisfactory answer to this, to a 
shrewd man who is starving to death. 



15 

Of course, in talking of a government payment 
to the Catholic priest, I mean it should be done 
with the utmost fairness and good faith; no 
attempt to gain patronage, or to make use of the 
Pope as a stalking-horse for playing tricks. Leave 
the patronage exactly as you find it ; and take the 
greatest possible care that the Catholic clergy 
have no reason to suspect you in this particular ; 
do it like a gentleman, without shuffling and pre- 
varication, or leave it alone altogether. 

The most important step in improvement which 
mankind ever made, was the secession from the 
see of Rome, and the establishment of the Pro- 
testant religion ; but though I have the sincerest 
admiration of the Protestant faith, I have no 
admiration of Protestant hassocks on which there 
are no knees, nor of seats on which there is no 
superincumbent Protestant pressure, nor of whole 
acres of tenantless Protestant pews, in which no 
human being of the 500 sects of Christians is 
ever seen. I have no passion for sacred empti- 
ness, or pious vacuity. The emoluments of those 
livings in which there are few or no Protestants, 
ought, after the death of the present incumbents, 
to be appropriated in part to the uses of the 
predominant religion, or some arrangements made 
for superseding such utterly useless ministers 
immediately, securing to them the emoluments 
they possess. 

Can any honest man say, that in parishes (as 



16 



is the case frequently in Ireland) containing 3000 
or 4000 Catholics, and 40 or 50 Protestants, there 
is the smallest chance of the majority being 
converted ? Are not the Catholics (except in the 
North of Ireland, where the great mass are Pres- 
byterians) gaining every where on the Protest- 
ants? The tithes were originally possessed by 
the Catholic Church of Ireland. Not one shilling 
of them is now devoted to that purpose. An 
immense majority of the common people are 
Catholics; they see a church richly supported by 
the spoils of their own church establishments, in 
whose tenets not one tenth part of the people 
believe. Is it possible to believe this can endure? 
— that a light, irritable, priest-ridden people will 
not, under such circumstances, always remain at 
the very eve of rebellion, always ready to explode 
when the finger of Daniel touches the hair trig- 
ger? — for Daniel, be it said, though he hates 
shedding blood in small quantities, has no objec- 
tion to provoking kindred nations to war. He 
very properly objects to killing or being killed by 
Lord Alvanley ; but would urge on ten thousand 
Pats in civil combat against ten thousand Bulls. 
His objections are to small homicides; and his 
vow that he has registered in Heaven is only 
against retail destruction, and murder by piece- 
meal. He does not like to teaze Satan by driblets ; 
but to earn eternal torments by persuading 
eight million Irish, and twelve million Britons 



17 



no longer to buy and sell oats and salt 
meat, but to butcher each other in God's name 
to extermination. And what if Daniel dies, — of 
what use his death ? Does Daniel make the oc- 
casion, or does the occasion make Daniel ? — 
Daniels are made by the bigotry and insolence of 
England to Ireland ; and till the monstrous abuses 
of the Protestant Church in that country are 
rectified, there will always be Daniels, and they 
will always come out of their dens more power- 
ful and more popular than when you cast them 
in. 

I do not mean by this unjustly and cowardly 
to run down O'Connell. He has been of eminent 
service to his country in the question of Catholic 
Emancipation, and I am by no means satisfied 
that with the gratification of vanity there are not 
mingled genuine feelings of patriotism and a deep 
sense of the injustice done to his country. His 
first success, however, flung him off his guard ; 
and perhaps he trusted too much in the timidity 
of the present Government, who are by no means 
composed of irresolute or weak men. 

If I thought Ireland quite safe, I should still 
object to injustice. I could never endure in 
silence that the Catholic Church of Ireland should, 
be left in its present state ; but I am afraid France 
and England can now afford to fight : and having 
saved a little money, they will, of course, spend 
it in fighting. That puppy of the waves, young 



18 



Joinville, will steam over in a high-pressure fleet ? 
— and then comes an immense twenty per cent, 
income-tax war, an universal insurrection in Ire- 
land, and a crisis of misery and distress, in which 
life will hardly be worth having. The struggle 
may end in our favour, but it may not : and the 
object of political wisdom is to avoid these strug- 
gles. I want to see jolly Roman Catholic priests 
secure of their income without any motive for 
sedition or turbulence. I want to see Patricks 
at the loom ; cotton and silk factories springing 
up in the bogs ; Ireland a rich, happy, quiet coun- 
try! — scribbling, carding, cleaning, and making 
calico, as if mankind had only a few days more 
allotted to them for making clothes, and were 
ever after to remain stark naked. 

Remember that between your impending and 
your past wars with Ireland, there is this re- 
markable difference. You have given up your 
Protestant auxiliaries; the Protestants enjoyed 
in former disputes all the patronage of Ireland ; 
they fought not only from religious hatred, but to 
preserve their monopoly ; — that monopoly is gone ; 
you have been candid and just for thirty years, 
and have lost those friends whose swords were 
always ready to defend the partiality of the 
Government and to stifle the cry of justice. The 
next war will not be between Catholic and Pro- 
testant, but between Ireland and England. 

I have some belief in Sir Robert. He is a man 



19 



of great understanding, and must see that this 
eternal O'Connelling will never do, that it is im- 
possible it can last. We are in a transition state, 
and the Tories may be assured that the Baronet 
will not go too fast. If Peel tells them that the 
thing must be done, they may be sure it is high 
time to do it; — they may retreat mournfully 
and sullenly before common justice and common 
sense, but retreat they must when Tamworth 
gives the word, — and in quick-step too, and with- 
out loss of time. 

And let me beg of my dear Ultras not to imagine 
that they survive for a single instant without Sir 
Robert — that they could form an Ultra-tory Ad- 
ministration. Is there a Chartist in Great Britain 
who would not, upon the first intimation of such 
an attempt, order a new suit of clothes, and call 
upon the baker and milkman for an extended 
credit? Is there a political reasoner who would 
not come out of his hole with a new constitution ? 
Is there one ravenous rogue who would not be 
looking for his prey ? Is there one honest man 
of common sense who does not see that universal 
disaffection and civil war would follow from the 
blind fury, the childish prejudices, and the deep 
ignorance of such a sect ? I have a high opinion 
of Sir Robert Peel, but he must summon up all 
his political courage, and do something next ses- 
sion for the payment of the Roman Catholic priests. 
He must run some risk of shocking public opinion ; 



20 



no greater risk, however, than he did in Catholic 
Emancipation. I am sure the Whigs would be 
true to him, and I think I observe that very many 
obtuse country gentlemen are alarmed by the 
state of Ireland, and the hostility of France and 
America. 

Give what you please to the Catholic priests, 
habits are not broken in a day. There must be 
time as well as justice, but in the end these things 
have their effect. A buggy, a house, some fields 
near it, a decent income paid quarterly; in the 
long run these are the cures of sedition and dis- 
affection ; men don't quit the common business of 
life, and join bitter political parties, unless they 
have something justly to complain of. 

But where is the money — about 400,000/. per 
annum — to come from ? Out of the pockets of 
that best of men, Mr. Thomas Grenville, out of 
the pockets of the Bishops, of Sir Robert Inglis, 
and all other men who pay all other taxes ; and 
never will public money be so well and wisely 
employed ! 

It turns out that there is no law to prevent 
entering into diplomatic engagements with the 
Pope. The sooner we become acquainted with 
a gentleman who has so much to say to eight 
millions of our subjects, the better ! Can anything 
be so childish and absurd as a horror of commu- 
nicating with the Pope, and all the hobgoblins 
we have imagined of premunires and outlawries 



21 

for this contraband trade in piety? Our ancestors 
(strange to say wiser than ourselves) have left 
us to do as we please, and the sooner Govern- 
ment do, what they can do legally, the better. 
A thousand opportunities of doing good in Irish 
affairs have been lost, from our having no avowed 
and dignified agent at the Court of Rome. If it 
depended upon me, I would send the Duke of 
Devonshire there to-morrow, with nine chaplains 
and several tons of Protestant theology. I have 
no love of popery, but the Pope is at all events 
better than the idol of Juggernaut, whose chap- 
lains I believe we pay, and whose chariot I dare 
say is made in Long Acre. We pay 10,000/. a 
year to our ambassador at Constantinople, and 
are startled with the idea of communicating diplo- 
matically with Rome, deeming the Sultan a better 
Christian than the Pope ! 

The mode of exacting clerical dues in Ireland 
is quite arbitrary and capricious. Uniformity is 
out of the question ; every thing depends on the 
disposition and temper of the clergyman. There 
are salutary regulations put forth in each diocese 
respecting church dues and church discipline, 
and put forth by episcopal and synodical author- 
ity. Specific sums are laid down for mass, 
marriage, and the administration of the Eucharist. 
These authorised payments are moderate enough, 
but every priest, in spite of these rules, makes 
the most he can of his ministry, and the strangest 



22 



discrepancy prevails, even in the same diocese, in 
the demands made upon the people. The priest 
and his flock are continually coming into collision 
on pecuniary matters. Twice a year the holy man 
collects confession money under the denomination 
of Christmas and Easter offerings. He selects in 
every neighborhood, one or two houses in which 
he holds stations of confession. Very disagreeable 
scenes take place when additional money is de- 
manded, or when additional time for payment is 
craved. The first thing done when there is a ques- 
tion of marrying a couple is, to make a bargain 
about the marriage money. The wary minister 
watches the palpitations, puts on a shilling for ev- 
ery sigh, and two-pence on every tear, and mad- 
dens the impetuosity of the young lovers up to a 
pound sterling. The remuneration prescribed by 
the diocesan statutes, is never thought of for a mo- 
ment ; the priest makes as hard a bargain as he 
can, and the bed the poor peasants are to lie upon 
is sold, to make their concubinage lawful; — 
but every one present at the marriage is to con- 
tribute ; — the minister, after begging and intreat- 
ing some time to little purpose, gets into a violent 
rage, abuses and is abused; — and in this way 
is celebrated one of the sacraments of the Cath- 
olic Church! — The same scenes of altercation 
and abuse take place when gossip money is 
refused at baptisms ; but the most painful scenes 
take place at extreme unction, a ceremony to 



23 

which the common people in Ireland attach the 
utmost importance. "Pay me beforehand — 
this is not enough — I insist upon more, I know 
you can afford it, I insist upon a larger fee ! " 

— and all this before the dying man, who feels 
he has not an hour to live ! and believes that 
salvation depends upon the timely application of 
this sacred grease. 

Other bad consequences arise out of the pre- 
sent system of Irish Church support. Many of 
the clergy are constantly endeavoring to over- 
reach and undermine one another. Every man 
looks to his own private emolument, regardless 
of all covenants, expressed or implied. The 
curate does not make a fair return to the parish 
priest, nor the parish priest to the curate. There 
is an universal scramble ! — every one gets what 
he can, and seems to think he would be almost 
justified in appropriating the whole to himself. 
And how can all this be otherwise ? How are 
the poor wretched clergy to live but by setting 
a high price on their theological labours, and 
using every incentive of fear and superstition to 
extort from six millions of beggars the little pay- 
ments wanted for the bodies of the poor, and the 
support of life! I maintain that it is shocking 
and wicked to leave the religious guides of six 
millions of people in such a state of destitution ! 

— to bestow no more thought upon them than 
upon the clergy of the Sandwich Islands ! If I 



24 



were a member of the Cabinet, and met my col- 
leagues once a week, to eat birds and beasts, and 
to talk over the state of the world, I should be- 
gin upon Ireland before the soup was finished, 
go on through fish, turkey, and saddle of mutton, 
and never end till the last thimbleful of claret 
had passed down the throat of the incredulous 
Haddington : but there they sit, week after week ; 
there they come, week after week ; the Piccadilly 
Mars, the Scotch Neptune, Themis Lyndhurst, 
the Tamworth Baronet, dear Goody, and dearer 
Gladdy, and think no more of paying the Ca- 
tholic clergy, than a man of real fashion does of 
paying his tailor ! And there is no excuse for this 
in fanaticism. There is only one man in the 
Cabinet who objects from reasons purely fanat- 
ical, because the Pope is the Scarlet Lady, or 
the Seventh Vial, or the Little Horn. All the 
rest are entirely of opinion that it ought to be 
done — that it is the one thing needful ; but they 
are afraid of bishops, and county meetings, news- 
papers, and pamphlets, and reviews; all fair 
enough objects of apprehension, but they must be 
met, and encountered, and put down. It is im- 
possible that the subject can be much longer 
avoided, and that every year is to produce a 
deadly struggle with the people, and a long trial 
in time of peace with O' somebody, the patriot for 
the time being, or the general, perhaps, in time 
of a foreign war. 



25 



If I were a Bishop, living beautifully in a state 
of serene plenitude, I don't think I could endure 
the thought of so many honest, pious, and labo- 
rious clergymen of another faith, placed in such 
disgraceful circumstances ! I could not get into 
my carriage with jelly-springs, or see my two 
courses every day, without remembering the 
buggy and the bacon of some poor old Catholic 
Bishop, ten times as laborious, and with much 
more, perhaps, of theological learning than my- 
self, often distressed for a few pounds ! and bur- 
thened with duties utterly disproportioned to 
his age and strength. I think, if the extreme 
comfort of my own condition did not extinguish 
all feeling for others, I should sharply commi- 
serate such a Church, and attempt with ardour and 
perseverance to apply the proper remedy. Now 
let us bring names and well-known scenes before 
the English reader, to give him a clearer notion 
of what passes in Catholic Ireland. The living 
of St. George's, Hanover Square, is a benefice of 
about 1500/. per annum, and a good house. It 
is in the possession of Dr. Hodgson, who is also 
Dean of Carlisle, worth, I believe, about 1500/. 
more. A more comfortable existence can hardly 
be conceived. Dr. Hodgson is a very worthy, 
amiable man, and I am very glad he is as rich 
as he is: but suppose he had no revenues but 
what he got off his own bat, — suppose that in- 
stead of tumbling through the skylight, as his 
4 



26 



income now does, it was procured by Catholic 
methods. The Doctor tells Mr. Thompson he 
will not marry him to Miss Simpson under 30/. ; 
Thompson demurs, and endeavours to beat him 
down. The Doctor sees Miss Simpson ; finds 
her very pretty ; thinks Thompson hasty, and 
after a long- and undignified negotiation, the 
Doctor gets his fee. Soon after this he receives 
a message from Place, the tailor, to come and 
anoint him with extreme unction. He repairs 
to the bed-side, and tells Mr. Place that he will 
not touch him under a suit of clothes, equal to 
10/. : the family resist, the altercation goes on 
before the perishing artizan, the price is reduced 
to 8/., and Mr. Place is oiled. On the ensuing 
Sunday the child of Lord B. is to be christened : 
the godfathers and godmothers will only give a 
sovereign each; the Doctor refuses to do it for 
the money, and the church is a scene of clamour 
and confusion. These are the scenes which, un- 
der similar circumstances, ivoidd take place here, 
for the congregation want the comforts of reli- 
gion without fees, and will cheat the clergyman 
if they can ; and the clergyman who means to 
live, must meet all these artifices with stern re- 
sistance. And this is the wretched state of the 
Irish Roman Catholic clergy ! — a miserable blot 
and stain on the English nation ! What a bless- 
ing to this country would a real Bishop be ! A 
man who thought it the first duty of Christianity 



27 



to allay the bad passions of mankind, and to re- 
concile contending sects with each other. What 
peace and happiness such a man as the Bishop of 
London might have conferred on the Empire, if, 
instead of changing black dresses for white 
dresses, and administering to the frivolous dis- 
putes of foolish zealots, he had labored to abate 
the hatred of Protestants for the Roman Catholics, 
and had dedicated his powerful understanding to 
promote religious peace in the two countries. 
Scarcely any bishop is sufficiently a man of the 
world to deal with fanatics. The way is not to 
reason with them, but to ask them to dinner. 
They are armed against logic and remonstrance, 
but they are puzzled in a labyrinth of wines, dis- 
armed by facilities and concessions, introduced 
to a new world, come away thinking more of hot 
and cold, and dry and sweet, than of Newman, 
Keble, and Pusey. So mouldered away Hanni- 
bal's army at Capua ! So the primitive and 
perpendicular prig of Puseyism is softened into 
practical wisdom, and coaxed into common sense ! 
Providence gives us Generals, and Admirals, and 
Chancellors of the Exchequer; but I never re- 
member in my time a real Bishop, — a grave, 
elderly man, full of Greek, with sound views 
of the middle voice and preterperfect tense, gen- 
tle and kind to his poor clergy, of powerful and 
commanding eloquence ; in Parliament never to 
be put down when the great interests of mankind 



28 



were concerned ; leaning to the Government 
when it was right, leaning to the People when 
they were right; feeling that if the Spirit of God 
had called him to that high office, he was called 
for no mean purpose, but rather that, seeing 
clearly, and acting boldly, and intending purely, 
he might confer lasting benefits upon mankind. 

We consider the Irish clergy as factious, and 
as encouraging the bad anti-British spirit of the 
people. How can it be otherwise? They live 
by the people; they have nothing to live upon 
but the voluntary oblations of the people; and 
they must fall into the same spirit as the people, 
or they would be starved to death. No marriage ; 
no mortuary masses; no unctions to the priest 
who preached against O' Connell ! 

Give the clergy a maintenance separate from 
the will of the people, and you will then enable 
them to oppose the folly and madness of the 
people. The objection to the State provision 
does not really come from the clergy, but from 
the agitators and repealers: these men see the 
immense advantage of carrying the clergy with 
them in their agitation, and of giving the sanc- 
tion of religion to political hatred; they know 
that the clergy, moving in the same direction 
with the people, have an immense influence over 
them ; and they are very wisely afraid, not only 
of losing this co-operating power, but of seeing 



29 



it, by a state provision, arrayed against them. 1 
am fully convinced that a state payment to the 
Catholic clergy, by leaving to that laborious and 
useful body of men the exercise of their free 
judgment, would be the severest blow that Irish 
agitation could receive. 

For advancing these opinions, I have no doubt 
I shall be assailed by Sacerdos, Vindex, Latimer, 
Vates, Clericus, Aruspex, and be called atheist, 
deist, democrat, smuggler, poacher, highwayman, 
Unitarian, and Edinburgh reviewer ! Still, I am 
in the right, — and what I say, requires excuse 
for being trite and obvious, not for being mis- 
chievous and paradoxical. I write for three rea- 
sons; first, because I really wish to do good; 
secondly, because if I don't write, I know no- 
body else will ; and thirdly, because it is the 
nature of the animal to write, and I cannot help 
it. Still, in looking back I see no reason to re- 
pent. What I have said ought to be done, gene- 
rally has been done, but always twenty or thirty 
years too late ; done, not of course because I 
have said it, but because it was no longer possible 
to avoid doing it. Human beings cling to their 
delicious tyrannies, and to their exquisite non- 
sense, like a drunkard to his bottle, and go on 
till death stares them in the face. The mon- 
strous state of the Catholic church in Ireland 
will probably remain till some monstrous ruin 



30 



threatens the very existence of the Empire, and 
Lambeth and Fulham are cursed by the affrighted 
people. 

I have always compared the Protestant church 
in Ireland (and I believe my friend Thomas 
Moore stole the simile from me) to the institu- 
tion of butchers' shops in all the villages of our 
Indian empire. " We will have a butcher's shop 
in every village, and. you, Hindoos, shall pay 
for it. We know that many of you do not eat 
meat at all, and that the sight of beef steaks is 
particularly offensive to you; but still, a stray 
European may pass through your village, and 
want a steak or a chop: the shop shall be es- 
tablished; and you shall pay for it." This is 
English legislation for Ireland ! ! There is no 
abuse like it in all Europe, in all Asia, in all 
the discovered parts of Africa, and in all we 
have heard of Timbuctoo! It is an error that 
requires 20,000 armed men for its protection in 
time of peace ; which costs more than a million 
a year ; and which, in the first French war, in 
spite of the puffing and panting of fighting 
steamers, will and must break out into desperate 
rebellion. 

It is commonly said, if the Roman Catholic 
priests are paid by the State, they will lose their 
influence over their flocks ; — not their fair in- 
fluence — not that influence which any wise and 



31 



good man would wish to see in all religions — 
not the dependence of humble ignorance upon 
prudence and piety — only fellowship in faction, 
and fraternity in rebellion ; — all that will be 
lost. A peep-of-day clergyman will no longer 
preach to a peep-of-day congregation — a White- 
boy vicar will no longer lead the psalm to White- 
boy vocalists ; but every thing that is good and 
wholesome will remain. This, however, is not 
what the anti-British faction want; they want 
all the animation which piety can breathe into 
sedition, and all the fury which the priesthood 
can preach to diversity of faith : and this is what 
they mean by a clergy losing their influence over 
the people ! The less a clergyman exacts of his 
people, the more his payments are kept out of 
sight, the less will be the friction with which he 
exercises the functions of his office. A poor 
Catholic may respect a priest the more who mar- 
ries, baptizes, and anoints ; but he respects him 
because he associates with his name and character 
the performance of sacred duties, not because he 
exacts heavy fees for doing so. Double fees 
would be a very doubtful cure for scepticism ; 
and though we have often seen the tenth of the 
earth's produce carted away for the benefit of 
the clergyman, we do not remember any very 
lively marks of satisfaction and delight which it 
produced in the countenance of the decimated 
person. I am thoroughly convinced that State 



32 



payments to the Catholic clergy would remove a 
thousand causes of hatred between the priest 
and his flock, and would be as favourable to the 
increase of his useful authority, as it would be 
fatal to his factious influence over the people. 



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